Hotel Alfonso XIII
The hotel of the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929
Work of the architect José Espiau y Muñoz; it was built between 1916 and 1928, and officially inaugurated on April 28, 1929,2 with the celebration of a sumptuous banquet presided over by King Alfonso XIII and Queen Victoria Eugenia. The reason for this banquet was the wedding of Infanta Isabella to Count Juan Zamoyski.
The banquet was held on the occasion of the wedding of Infanta Isabella to Count Juan Zamoyski.
The hotel was in fact the first hotel of its kind in Spain.
The hotel was actually a winning project chosen among so many others after a competition was held, under the direction of the brilliant architect Aníbal González. Espiau won the prize, and erected a building destined to be the hotel for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929. King Alfonso XIII himself showed great interest in the achievement of the works and established indications on how some areas were to be completed. During the Second Republic, it was renamed Hotel Andalucía Palace, later recovering its original name, which is still preserved today.
It has a neo-classical style.
It is neo-Mudejar style, inspired by Arab architecture but with an Andalusian regionalist touch. It was designed in the first quarter of the twentieth century, so architecturally it is integrated into the overall aesthetics of the other buildings planned for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929. Overall there is a wealth of decorative elements and details, achieved with materials that could well be considered simple, since they are mostly brick, plaster, wood and ceramics.
